Curious Lola

Kate and Joseph’s Wedding!

Number 4- You know how much we love sticks…. and logs… and rocks. There are so many situations and arrangements in life that can be improved with a stick.

Number 3- You know how much we love our Seattle University community and the luminous St. Ignatius Chapel

Number 2- Clearly Joseph understands the joy and power that comes from sporting Party Socks as shown in Kim Hayes’ photo collage capturing the event.

And finally- Number 1- This is actually the first time I, personally, have experienced an exuberant, purely joy-filled bride on her wedding day. No sign of stress, no nerves, just bursting happiness and excitement. I hope Kate will write a letter for every other bride on how it is done. With all the tradition and timeline, it’s hard to remember that weddings are the ultimate party. These two, and their families knew that.

So thank you Kate and Joseph for the inspiring presentation on how to rock your wedding.
We’ve taken notes!

Farm to Table: Flower Arrangements with Edibles.

I get a special kick out of watching people interact with our flower arrangements. We don’t get to see it too often since we are typically long gone when the event’s guests arrive. This is especially fun when they see something unexpected- like something they are usually seeing on their dinner plates. That’s why I was so excited when Ravishing Radish asked us to set up a unique “farm to table” themed set for their April tasting at the yacht club on Lake Union.

Vintage Ambiance let us ransack their cave of vintage treasures. We picked up some pieces from their new stash of milkglass vessels and some old crates.

We chose to stick with oranges, reds, and yellows mostly because the daffodils look so freegin’ delicious. They are truly the happiest flower I know. After heading to the flower market we stopped by the grocery store for some kumquat, peppers, parsley, chard, lettuce, artichokes, oranges, lemons, and strawberries…. and asparagus…. and tomatoes… oh and grapes. Maybe I should have had a snack before heading to the grocery store.

aside from the produce, we also incorporated ornamental artichoke foliage and scented geranium.

We coated the lemons, oranges, and strawberries with a thick layer of decorative sugar. Yummm.

Earth, Water, Air, and Red.

Show and tell! Simple elements in a bright open space made for a bold statement for this summer wedding. The colors were red and white with black accents. We fused elements that hinted at the bride and groom’s Indian and Chinese heritage while still maintaining their modern style. The centerpieces were inspired by Chinese landscape design which aims to set up scenes and environments that are smaller scale, simplified versions of larger landscapes. Pond=lake, Large rock=mountain. You get the idea.

Intermingled driftwood branches! You really don’t need much else for a striking shape and focal point.

Have I mentioned how much I love Pravda Studios? The light in here is amazing.

We used local water-lily dahlias in lieu of more costly and less available lotus blossoms. Bamboo stands in and outside of the water basin and mimics the Seattle skyline. The bamboo is painted in red enamel.

Half of the tables had the bamboo and half included these shiny black stones. This is the mountain part.

We always have a hard time staying inside the container.

Each table had one black napkin. That was the groom’s idea.

Hooray!
Another great thing about these event arrangements? No waste- well, maybe the candles. Everything is either a reusable, or a compostable.

PS, check out Lola Floral in this season’s issue of Seattle Bride in the “Paper Parade” article.

Flowers for Fresh Leaders.

We recently did some flowers for an Ubermind Event that turned out really well. It was held at the lovely, airy, and gasp-inducing Pravda Studios and used fresh green and a pop of rust color. A little bit of research into the company gave me some direction on where we would go to make these flowers super awesome. — well as much direction as I can get by deducing ones brand soley from web design.

Ubermind:

Dynamic, young, edgy- How about we use some unusual shapes and unexpected additions

Innovative, resourceful- How about some smartly up-cycled elements.

Young and bold- um… chili peppers?

Smart and creative- All this dynamism could easily get away from us, so let’s make sure the creative impulses are wrapped in an orderly, measured way that conveys some elegance and organization.

Seattle- Something tells me there’s a lot of facial hair and bike riders over in Ubie Land. Probably weekly meetings are at coffee shops and instead of costco pastries, they have organic, vegan donuts in their conference room- Great effort has been spent to make their conference room less conference-room-like. It probably is very open and friendly with semi reclining furniture and tactile things to play with. (Mr Potato Head?) They probably have a resident Beagle or Blood Hound. Definitely a Blood Hound… named Blossom. (sigh) so definitely some local/ organic flowers are in order.

Hooray!

The curly fabric is recycled rags. Peppers are from the Pike Place Market.

Wahoo!

Flower Baby

When I send my flower babies out into the world. I hope they will succeed. I hope they will find people who will love them. I hope they are taken care of. I hope they stay strong and healthy. I hope they hold it together. I hope each flower supports its neighbor. I hope they work well together knowing that, together, they can achieve so much more. I hope a lot of people take notice. And perhaps most of all, I hope their work in the world is documented beautifully through images. I hope those images find their way back to me so that I can remember and share the joy they brought to all.

I am so happy that this flower baby came across the likes of Jason and Jenny, the lovely team at JKoe Photography for Rachel and Ben’s lovely wedding. They grasped all that floral success and put it in a photo that oozes beauty.

Photo by JKoe Photography

Photo by JKoe Photography

Thank you guys! And thank you to Rachel and Ben for bringing this flower baby to life.

I love the tie, by the way.

And while sitting at my computer…for some reason drawing a flower baby seemed more interesting than doing what I was supposed to be doing.